There's a reason why I get -4 hits.

Plus Tris's visits :P

3 reasons:

1. It doesn't help that I can't publicise this blog enough, because my friends and co. doesn't even know me as Phileas. They know me as [censored] and Phileas is an alias. For good reason because [censored].

2. So that leaves me with the only option of leaving my link on bottom of fourm addresses and those who believe my real name was Phileas Mann, that I'm a 17-year-old white male, and I'm one with a lot of free time on my hands. The thing is, all of those facts arn't true. But's it's nice having an alter ego that has a totally different personality than what I really am. (Gasp!)

3 (and my post topic of the day). I don't get political. Disregarding number two, there's something that comes from my real personality: I am a moderate. A freggin moderate. Not left-wing loony (oh, where did I hear that from?), but I can't stand red-necks either. A freggin M.O.D.E.R.A.T.E.

I don't run this blog for hits - this is merely a, well, secret diary with it's chain unlocked, and where my best buddy found it stashed with a bunch of (well, you know what's underneath boy's beds), and where he had then photocopied all the rants and posted all around the school - well, a school's a metaphor for the WWW, and you get the drift...

So you know that I'm a moderate. So what does a moderate do when he/she's dragged along a political conversation? I shut up. Yep, ears open and mouth closed. No words. But I have a few friends (who are real... oh, shit, this alter-ego crap is gonna stuff up this post sooo much) who are either passionately left-or-right wing that it drives me nuts.

I wasn't born into money (and for those who say they are: you're full of shit!), I had a pretty comfortable upbringing, definitely not rich, but my family travelled quite a bit and I, well, not to brag or anything, got spoilt alot.

How does that relate to politics? I go to a private school, and with any private school, you've got the snobbish kids. And there was one snobbish kid who thinks he's so rich and this guy always bugs me about being a moderate, and when he asked me on a two-party-preffered basis what would I hypothetically vote for and I said Labor, he always tries to mock me as though I'm a saving-the-whale hippy left-wing loony.

Enough backstory. One day, he said, "A question: are you rich?" Naturally, I said no, but he continued on, "Well, if you were rich, you'd vote Liberal, like me.". And that just did it for me - I hate any form of party affiliation.

Naturally, as it's a private school, it was very conservative, and you'd get hammered if you were for anything else besides right-wing, so I had it coming. But, besides the obvious snobbishness, I found it really fucked up that there was a mindset that you were only rich if you were for the right! This is absolute bullshit! Unlike those S.O.Bs, I had a concience, and I knew that blue-collar Australians were putting their fucking dinner on the table, and they deserve some rights, so I was appalled at that comment! (This was during the Howard years BTW. Does it make sense now?)

But, then said, don't accuse me as being all mushy for Labor. Rudd's done some wacky stuff to Australia - i.e. let's take the stupid internet filter that doesn't come much to anything. I'm not saying Labor is perfect, but it sure is better than having a fucking mindsets of today's generation of conservatives (from my view anyways).

So, I'm a moderate. So shut the fuck up, and go voice your views elsewhere. I think I'm getting a chronic migrane from political idiots...

So, I got Foxtel.

And it's so far, so good, then so bad.

I wasn't home for the installation, but when I got home, that glorious set top box sitting on where my (failing HD) DVB-T STB was sitting previously, yelling, "Watch Me! Watch Me! WATCH ME!"

And I did. I got the "newer" boxes (they look different, and they've got a totally new-looking firmare, possibly the same manufacturers of the IQ2 box?) and the quality, considering it's SD, was brilliant.

There's a reason I got it - I saw too many of those Foxtel ads on FTA, and every time I saw it, my craving for overpriced, ad-riddled subscription television got even deeper. And, so, after some teadious budgeting (yeah, I admit, the financial crisis is hitting me too), I was able to fork out ~$70 for Basic + My World + Disney for the little 'un. At least the this month is free.

And, anyways, I turned on the box, and it was brill. I'm having trouble remembering all the channel numbers, but I've got some stuck in my head: 601 for Sky News, 605 for CNN, erh, Arena's 118?

And, while I am familar to the Active Service, I got a bit too excited with the Weather Channel Active showing detailed weather for my suburb. And, after more channel surfing, I got a bit of a surprise - MTV's got it's own Active channel (although unaccessable for some reason at some time).

But now I'm getting pretty pissed at it. Not at the channels themselves, but the freggin' hardware. So I was watching Jeopardy on W (why is it on W? Men watch it too!), and the show was up the last Jeopardy question thing, then it went to an ad break, so I pressed the Power button on the remote (as a force of habit), and so it went to sleep. Went to get a drink, pressed the Power button, and it wouldn't turn on. Turned it on via the STB and it turned on. I turned it back off, pulled out the cord, and plugged it in, thinking it would solve the problem. It didn't, and furthermore, it was downloading the guides... and when it finished after a minute, it ended up on 999 Help, and I was furiously flicking through to W on my knees, using the STB because the remote was still bloody stubburn, and when I did get to W, it was already in the credits!

And, you know what pisses me off? The remote turned off the STB on command when I got pissed at it shortly after.

And, so, meh. Foxtel channels: Brilliant. Foxtel Hardware: Disasterous. Seriously, if I get more problems with this POS hardware...